In that survey, an interesting result was reported that shows a huge disconnect between the CIO and CMO when it comes to digital strategy. A recap of the survey results:

58% of CIO’s / IT Executives said they were leading the digital agenda at their company.

19% of the CMO’s / Marketing Executives said that the CIO/IT Execs were leading the digital agenda.

69% of the CMO’s / Marketing Executives said that they were leading the digital agenda.

Take a second to think those numbers through.

Looks like have a disconnect, correct?

The CIO thinks they are leading the digital agenda.

The CMO thinks they are.

And we wonder why there’s so much discord between Marketing and IT.

What’s the real issue?

In trying to understand the issue at play here, I took a look at the goals/projects that most CIO’s & CMO’s have reported are on their plate for 2010…and was surprised to find that they are actually similar.

Now…let’s take a look at what CMO’s see as their focus for the coming year. The CMO Council reports in their Marketing Outlook for 2010 (link to PDF Executive Summary) that CMO’s are focusing on the projects for the coming year (top 5 reported):

Digital marketing makeover – platforms, programs people

Sales and marketing organization alignment

Customer data integration and analytics

Marketing performance measurement

Lead qualification and harvesting system

Pretty interesting projects. B to B Magazine reports on these survey results and quotes a member of the CMO Council as saying:

“This year, we will see a significant shift in how companies integrate, manage and run all of their digital marketing operations,” said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council.

I think we are all seeing this shift happening in most organizations this year.

Take a look at the CIO projects and compare them to the CMO’s list. They actually kind of match up, don’t they?

The CIO has a goal/project of reducing costs…which can be at odds with what marketing is trying to do…but I don’t think budgetary issues are driving the CIO vs CMO debates.

So…it seems that both groups are working on similar projects, no?

Since we know that the underlying goals are fairly similar, what’s the real issue at hand here?

I think it comes down to two major issues: Communication & Leadership. More on both of those issues next week.

Zane hit it on the head…that’s exactly the problem. CMO’s and CIO’s don’t talk in most organizations…and its a shame.

Join me me next week when I look at the communication and leadership issue. I’ll also share a story about how poorly a CIO and a CMO communicated and worked together…and how their relationship caused a massive failure in the organizations abilities to achieve their goals.

Eric! This is a great post because it simply, crisply, illustrates the disconnect.

“I own the digital media agenda.”

“No, I own it…”

And both have their backs turned to the other and their headphones turned up loud.

And you’re exactly right. It comes down to communication and leadership. Who’s listening? And who’s making the tough choice to say…You two need to sit down and listen because we depend on you both. To work together.

All the best! I’ll be back next week!

http://ericbrown.com Eric D. Brown

Thanks Zane.

I’ve you’ve hit it on the head exactly. Noboby’s talking nor listening…and we need to change that.

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About Eric

Eric D. Brown, D.Sc. is a technology and marketing consultant with an interest in using technology and data to solve real-world business problems. In recent years, he has combined sentiment analysis, natural language processing and big data approaches to build innovative systems and strategies to solve interesting problems. In addition, he is an entrepreneur and has recently launched Trade The Sentiment, a website/service for using Twitter Sentiment in trading and investing. He also likes to take photographs when he can.

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About Eric

Dr. Brown received his Doctor of Science in Information Systems in 2014 with a dissertation titled "Analysis of Twitter Messages for Sentiment and Insight for use in Stock Market Decision Making". His research interests are currently in the areas of decision support, data science, big data, natural language processing, sentiment analysis and social media analysis.In recent years, he has combined sentiment analysis, natural language processing and big data approaches to build innovative systems and strategies to solve interesting problems.

In addition, he is an entrepreneur and launched a few companies with the most recent being a company focused on proving data analytics and visualization services.